Avant La Lettre
by emily.down
Summary: A missing scene from 3x22. Because Damon still met Bonnie first. R&R.


_Well, yes, it's payback time. Julie Plec thought she'd have Damon meet Elena first and that's that. Nope. I am redoing that scene. Damon **still** gets to meet Bonnie first...and **then** he encounters the doppleganger.  
_

_This takes place right before Elena calls Bonnie about Matt, if you recall. _

_It starts out with Damon wandering around the woods..._

_Tell me what you think :)_

* * *

The forest felt different.

Odd that he should find the woods he'd explored so many times unfamiliar and yet, the new, modern face of the old town so unaltered.

There was change in the air. Maybe someone had unsettled the balance of nature.

He smirked. That would be him.

Damon wondered if anyone else ever bothered walking out here in the middle of the night, alone with their thoughts, gazing as the same half-square moon that cast its stark light across the canopies into the void.

If you picked the right spot and if you managed to silence your ears and blind your peripheral vision, you really felt alone in the world. The only survivor in a sea of silence.

The feeling was uplifting. There was no fear, no regret, no anger. Just you and the emptiness.

Granted, you could not keep up the illusion. The town's proximity disrupted the spell you put yourself under, but maybe because this town was so small, old and unchangeable, no matter the times and the people, that the solitude you felt in that forest was more pronounced, more tragic.

Being alone in the forest was romantic; being alone in the town was downright sad. Having to go from one solitude to the other was the tragedy.

He stood by an old oak tree and began carving a stake with a knife he kept in his pocket.

It was an old habit; always have a stake or two ready at hand.

In all seriousness, he did not expect to use one tonight, but it was oddly comforting to sit down and do this manual task.

Five minutes into his endeavour, he suddenly sensed a strange, new presence coming towards him from afar.

And the odd thing was that it did not feel human. Not entirely so.

_Huh_, he thought, shaking his head bitterly, staring at his weapon, _I already found a use for this baby_.

He stood behind the oak, stake in his left hand, watching the perimeter carefully. He would have lied to say he did not partially enjoy this.

He had put out plenty of vampires in the last two years alone. One or...twenty of them might want to chase him down for the sake of getting even.

He was prepared to tear into them like cattle. After all, for once he had a purpose. For once, he did not wish to die. He had come home again and he had a brother to talk to.

The presence was getting nearer and nearer.

He gripped the stake tighter.

He heard footsteps. Then the snapping of a twig. Whoever this was, they weren't very subtle.

He was about to jump out of his hideout and rip out the vampire heart that he might find encased in the foreign body, when he saw a ray of light, different from the moon's.

It was a flashlight.

And a young girl was holding it, aimed in front of her like a gun.

He quickly made his way into the opposing bushes to take a better look at her.

The girl sensed his movement, no matter how untraceable and stepped back, slightly alarmed.

"Hello -? Is anyone there?"

Her voice betrayed fear and excitement. Her hands were shaking slightly and she was sweating.

He rolled his eyes. Definitely not a vampire. Not to mention he could practically taste her blood.

But then again, what had he sensed to be supernatural? Was someone else here besides her?

"Anyone?" she asked again, half-heartedly.

Damon stood perfectly still.

After a full minute, she sighed, letting her shoulders relax, although Damon was not quite sure whether the expression on her face was relief or disappointment.

The young girl had dressed for a mission, obviously. She was wearing long leather boots and black pants, a leather belt where she had hung a taser, a long blue hoodie and a rucksack slouched over her shoulder.

She did not look older than seventeen.

For a Mystic Falls resident, which he assumed she was, she seemed far too prudent and over-prepared for whatever adventure she had embarked on.

For all he knew, teenage girls did not like to roam the forests at night. They were not looking to be the only survivors in a sea of silence.

But this one…

She had crouched down and was now inspecting the roots of the old oak.

Damon hadn't bothered to clean up the remains of the bark he had chopped down and it looked like some wild beast had torn into the trunk.

Bonnie's flashlight travelled along the hollow place Damon had left carved into the tree.

She touched it with her hands. It was as if she was feeling sorry for the thing.

"Who did this to you?" she asked in the unwavering silence. Her voice seemed to accuse the abuser.

Whoever she was, Damon surmised she had a very specific relationship with nature.

Without expecting to receive an answer, she started searching the ground for any signs of a wild animal.

She was so focused on her task that she did not even feel the presence standing in her vicinity.

Damon had slowly crept up behind her to better watch the amusing way in which she "combed" the area for clues, as some policemen would put it.

She seemed so immersed in her world, so detached from reality; she had a dream-like quality.

"Now what's a girl like you doing getting her hands dirty?" he drawled in his usual mocking tone.

The young girl almost jumped out of her skin. She turned so quickly that her hands accidentally dropped the flashlight.

It rolled over on the grass further away from her and it clicked itself shut.

The moon's light had lingered somewhere behind and only dark-blue clouds hovered above their heads.

Even through the darkness, he could see the look of sheer panic crossing her face. She had lost her most valuable item.

She extended her arms to try and reach it, but she only grasped leaves.

Not letting this little obstacle get in the way, she moved forward and lunged at it again.

Damon watched her amused.

She was trying not to show how afraid she was. Her forehead was creased in determination and her eyes shimmered with renewed strength and something else...something indefinable. The panic was still there, but she was trying to subdue it.

What disturbed her most was that the unwelcome stranger was just standing there silently, waiting for her to get her flashlight.

"A little more to the right," he commented, pointing in the opposite direction.

His voice startled her again. She moved back.

"Where exactly?" she asked innocently.

Damon was somewhat nonplussed. She actually _believed_ he would help her?

"Want me to hand it to you?"

Bonnie shook her head. "Just point me to it."

_Ah_, Damon thought, _naïve but still a little bold_.

"Two steps behind you, then to the left," he spoke.

"You said to the right before."

"Oh, someone's paying close attention," he remarked, amused.

"If you're wondering why I'm not just running away instead, it's because I'm armed. And I need my flashlight," Bonnie stated valiantly when she heard him chuckle.

That only made him chuckle more.

"And what sort of weapons of mass destruction could you possibly conceal in that rucksack?"

"Enough to – enough to put you down if you try to hurt me."

He saw her jaw trembling slightly, but other than that, she held her ground.

She was a proud thing.

"You're the one walking around the woods at night," he countered.

"I…I got lost."

Damon rolled his eyes. "No one can get lost in Mystic Falls."

"So…so you're from around here?"

"No. But you are."

The girl moved forward and reached out towards her right, in the exact opposite directions he had indicated.

Damon was slightly impressed.

Her fingers had almost reached the flashlight, when in less than a second he was at her side and the sharp edge of the stake touched the skin of her hands.

"Na-ah! You don't get to take your trinket back. Not until I've tasted you."

One of her hands immediately darted towards the taser but he quickly immobilized it and pushed her down to the ground, his body towering over hers.

"Playing dirty tricks, I see," he drawled, scanning her from head to toe.

"Let me go! Let me go!" she yelled, trying to tear herself away from his strong grip.

Her eyes widened. She had never encountered anyone so strong. His arms felt like concrete.

"Tell me why you came here tonight, I'm actually curious to know," he suddenly asked, his eyes boring into hers like two incisive needles, leaving her dizzy and confused. And unable to look away.

Then, suddenly, before she knew what she was doing, she started talking.

"I do this sometimes. I go out into the forest to…explore. I feel a presence all the time, calling me. It's coming from the earth. I – I don't know what it is. But it draws me in. It makes me want to go into the unknown. Into the woods."

Damon stared at her in surprise. Out of all the answers he had expected, this was not one of them.

She was...a bit more complicated than your average teenager. A bit more complicated than Mystic Falls too.

And there was something foreign and inexplicable about her eyes. Even under compulsion, they had the same shine he had noticed before. As if she was seeing through him, into nothingness. As if she was already far away into another realm where that strange presence was calling to her.

He wondered whether she felt the same nonhuman presence he had sensed but minutes ago, or maybe she herself…

He shook his head.

This was just another girl who liked danger a little bit too much. She probably dressed up and ransacked these woods with her flashlight as a secret hobby of hers.

And yet, there was something about her that he could not help but respect.

Maybe it was her innocence, combined with a keen sense of courage.

Maybe it was her puzzling eyes and the strange unnatural aura they gave.

Maybe both.

But he could not feed from her.

He pressed the flashlight into her palms.

"Here, you'll need this on your way back," he whispered in her ear.

And then he was gone.

Next thing she knew, Bonnie Bennett was leaning against the oak's trunk, her flashlight in her hands, her knees dirty, her breathing erratic, her hair disheveled and a wooden stake at her feet.

She picked it up and stared at it for a long time.

Someone had carved it out of the tree.

Someone had been there. Someone she would never remember.

Minutes later, her phone started ringing. She took it out of her pocket.

It was Elena.


End file.
